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Students Document LGBTQ+ Policies on College Campuses

Sarah Lipson, associate professor of health law, policy, and management, recruited a team of SPH students to support the launch of her latest research project, an initiative to track policies affecting transgender and nonbinary students at more than 400 universities and colleges.

For the first time, a national database will catalogue policies affecting transgender and nonbinary students at more than 400 U.S. universities and colleges.

This past summer, Sarah Lipson, associate professor of health law, policy, and management, recruited a team of students from the School of Public Health to support the launch of the novel LGBTQ+ policy tracking initiative.

Lipson and her collaborator Even Paglisotti, a PhD candidate in population health sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, aim to assess thirteen different policies pertaining to both protections for and discrimination against transgender and nonbinary college students. These include name change policies, student health insurance coverage for gender-affirming care, trans-inclusive trained counseling staff, and gender-inclusive campus housing and restrooms. The policy database will be linked to student-reported survey data from the Healthy Minds Study at each institution to examine how exposure to the policies shapes mental health outcomes over time. The project is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the William T. Grant Foundation.

At the state level, SPH researchers have previously shown that in recent years, the U.S. has experienced an unprecedented surge in discriminatory laws threatening the health of socially marginalized groups, including transgender and nonbinary people. The legislative changes have curtailed access to important services and resources, such as gender-affirming care and gender-congruent bathrooms, that not only affect health, but also contribute to the creation and persistence of stigma and the exacerbation of discriminatory beliefs and behaviors. Through this new policy-tracking initiative at the college and university level, Lipson and her team hope to determine how higher education policies further discriminate or conversely protect transgender and nonbinary students.

Becca Rohac, an MPH student studying health policy and law,  says, “Being involved in this project is a way for me to use my voice as a researcher, public health professional, and LGBTQ+ ally to draw attention to the serious harms and consequences of anti-trans attitudes and legislation.” At the same time that Rohac assisted with Lipson’s policy-tracking research, she also completed a practicum under Allegra Gordon, assistant professor of community health sciences, where she qualitatively coded interview transcripts from transgender and nonbinary young adults on their social media experiences and put together a policy brief on how recent social media safety legislation uniquely impacts LGBTQ+ populations.

“I feel strongly that transgender and nonbinary youth deserve to feel safe, seen, and protected and that no one should ever have their identity invalidated or weaponized as a political tool,” Rohac says.

The project is the most recent addition to Lipson’s already robust portfolio of research focused on mental health in higher education. As a principal investigator at the Healthy Minds Network, a population-level survey of post-secondary student mental health, Lipson applies her expertise to better understand how policymakers, clinicians, administrators, faculty, staff, and peers can better support the mental and emotional wellbeing of students during what can be a uniquely stressful period of life.

“As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, this work [means] a lot to me, and I think it is important that we highlight the ways that campus policies can have unintended effects on the health of transgender and LGBTQ+ students,” says Lexi Usher, an MPH student studying health law and policy, who contributed to this summer’s policy tracking push as part of her practicum.

To create the policy database, the students scoured university websites, placed inquiries via phone, and consulted the Campus Pride Index, a free online benchmarking tool cataloguing LGBTQ-inclusive policies, programs and practices at colleges and universities. As of October 2024, the team has recorded information across all 13 policy domains for 90 percent of the institutions investigated and have begun compiling a qualitative paper detailing their process.

“Collectively, we tracked nearly 4,000 unique policies that affect trans and nonbinary students at hundreds of colleges across the U.S.,” says Lipson. She intends to make the database publicly available as well as add to it each year. “There may be opportunities for students to get involved in that ongoing policy tracking,” she notes.

Skyler Lesser-Roy, an MPH student pursuing a certificate in health law and policy, recommends that students looking for similar opportunities reach out to their professors. “I read about [Lipson’s] work in an SPH Today email!” she says. “Even if you don’t know them, many BUSPH professors are working on really fascinating projects and many of them would love your individual expertise.”